CEAN Computerized EEG Analysis [antikvár]

Spectral analysis and related methods provide a detailed and suggestive dissection of cerebral processes. It is the author's belief that these are some of the tools which will lead to fruitful studies of the integrative function of the higher reaches of the central nervous system ; further, that the physiologist who finds the computer and the probability text book distasteful, will thereby find himself handicapped in unravelling that most organized complexity, the human brain, W. Grey Walter Foreword The first studies by Hans Berger «Uber das Elektroenkephalogramm des Menschen» are already indicative of the anticipation that the EEG might become an important tool in the detection and determination of psychic functions and psychosomatic interrelations. At first only dimly perceived, it soon became desirable to obtain quantitative measurements of the considerable information provided by the EEG. In 1932 Dietsch at the instigation of Berger performed the first Fourier analyses of short EEG periods, Drohocki developed amplitude integration and Grey Walter his frequency analyser. These early attempts at the quantitative determination of the EEG soon gave interesting results, but nevertheless no wider acceptance ensued. Today we know that these pioneers of EEG analysis were running ahead of the necessary development of procedural and statistical principles, all the more so since the foundations of the theory of random processes were only then being laid down by Chinchin and Wiener. At the same time, electronic technology was just taking its first steps and electronic computers were not in sight. An important stage in the further development, which is not to be outlined here in detail, was reached with the introduction of electronic equipment which made possible the complicated calculation of covariance functions; associated with the names ofM. A.B. Brazier, Barlow and others. Although technically only a small step towards spectroanalysis of EEG, this method could be practised only by a few study teams at that time. The decisive breakthrough which brought modern methods of EEG analysis within the reach of many laboratories came with the discovery of the Fast-Fourier-Transformation by Cooley and Tukey who based spectroanalysis on new algoritmic principles, and with the development of computer technology which provided sufficiently efficient small and medium capacity computers for EEG laboratories at reasonable cost. These technological advances also contributed to the development of methods of EEG analysis in the time domain. It cannot be taken as an exaggeration to state that after decades of development in classical electro-encephalography a new era of EEG research is now before us. This period will lead to an increasingly more extensive utilisation of the greatly differentiated information which so far has actually more concealed than revealed the highly organised function and structure of the brain as contained in the EEG. We have just started to take the first steps in this direction. First practical applications have been realised, as in psychopharmacology or sleep research. New impulses are now being directed towards research into the biological aspects of psychoses, and the development of a system for the clinical EEG laboratory to permit automatic quantitative diagnoses no longer appears Utopian. Psychophysiological research starts to utilise EEG analysis, followed by a monitoring system of anaesthesia and severely ill patients. As can only be expected, this rapidly accelerating development also raises new procedural and technological problems requiring closer cooperation between physician, mathematician and engineer. This cooperation is to